by John Grisham
Then there was Liza. She talked more and more of coming home, of getting back into her life on the farm. She claimed to miss Nineva, which Joel doubted. But she missed her rituals, her gardening, her horses, her friends. If it all vanished, the damage could be catastrophic. At every visit, Dr. Hilsabeck inquired about the lawsuits and appeals and all that legal mess that to him was indecipherable.
So Joel researched and wrote. John Wilbanks reviewed his drafts, edited, and offered comments. He filed his brief on January 18, and the waiting game began. The supreme court could hear the case in three months, or twelve.
That afternoon Joel packed his papers, cleaned his desk, and tidied the little office where he had spent so many hours. He had already said good-bye to Florry and planned to drive to Oxford that night to begin his fourth semester of law school. He joined John Wilbanks on the terrace for a drink. The weather was unseasonably warm and springlike.
John lit a cigar and offered one to Joel, who declined. They sipped Jack Daniel’s sour mash and commented on the weather. Wilbanks said, “We hate to see you go, Joel. It’s nice having you around the office.”
“I enjoy it,” Joel said, though it was a stretch.
“We’d like to have you back this summer for another clerkship.”
“Thanks. I appreciate that.” He had no plans to return for the summer, or next year or the one after that, but it was too soon to inform John Wilbanks. “I may stay in school this summer,” he said. “Finish next December.”
“What’s the rush? You’d better enjoy the college days, son.”
“I’m tired of those days. I want to get out and start a career.”
“Well, I hope you’ll consider our offer of an associate’s position.”
Why beat around the bush? His father never minced words and was admired for his bluntness. Joel took a long pull on the whiskey and said, “Mr. Wilbanks, I’m not sure I can practice law in this town. When I see that courthouse, and it’s rather hard to miss, I think of my father’s last moments. I think of him walking bravely down the street, crowds on both sides, all the veterans here to honor him, to support him, and I can just see him walking into the building and up the stairs to his death. His long walk to the grave. And when I enter that courtroom, I can think of only one image. My father getting strapped in.”
“I understand, Joel.”
“I’m convinced I’ll never be able to erase that image. How can I represent clients in that courtroom?”
“I understand.”
Chapter 44
On March 28, thirteen months after the trial in Oxford, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans affirmed the $100,000 wrongful death verdict. The opinion was short and unanimous. While the justices were alarmed at the size of the verdict, they were thoroughly unsympathetic to the interests of a man of means who so brazenly murdered his own pastor. The crime was calculated. The victim’s family suffered greatly. The jurors heard the case, listened to the witnesses, reviewed the documents, and deliberated thoughtfully. The justices would not substitute their opinions for those of the jurors. Affirmed on all counts.
For the Bannings, the decision was devastating. The Wilbanks brothers and Joel had convinced themselves that the verdict would indeed stand on appeal, but would certainly be reduced. Fifty thousand dollars in punitive damages was unheard of. Given the value of Pete’s land and his other assets, it was conceivable that his estate could withstand a lesser award, perhaps something in the neighborhood of $50,000. The eventual owners of the land, whether Joel and Stella, or Pete’s estate, could borrow that much with a mortgage and satisfy the judgment. But, an enforceable lien of $100,000 looked insurmountable.
The future of the land now rested solely with the Mississippi Supreme Court. If it upheld Rumbold’s ruling that the conveyance was proper, then Joel and Stella would keep the land. Burch Dunlap and his now permanent sidekick, Errol McLeish, would be forced to attack Pete’s other assets—bank accounts, farm equipment, livestock, automobiles—in order to squeeze whatever money they could find. But, if the court reversed Rumbold, the land reverted to Pete’s estate and would become subject to the jury’s verdict. Everything, including the home and furnishings, would be lost.
With Joel’s assistance, John Wilbanks appealed the Fifth Circuit’s decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, a complete waste of time. However, the appeal would keep Dunlap busy and buy a few months. Dunlap enrolled the $100,000 judgment, now with interest clicking away, with the circuit clerk in Ford County. Wilbanks ran to chancery court, woke up old Rumbold, and petitioned for an injunction to prevent Dunlap from trying to grab assets pending the appeal. After a brief and contentious hearing, Rumbold once again ruled in favor of the Bannings. Dunlap petitioned the Mississippi Supreme Court for an expedited hearing. Wilbanks opposed it.
Joel monitored the assaults and counterattacks from the safety of his garage apartment in Oxford. For $10 a month, he leased the ground floor of the garage and, using his father’s Ford truck, began quietly moving furniture and furnishings from their home to the safety of the garage. Nineva didn’t like it, but she had no say in the matter.
In mid-May, Joel and Florry loaded into her 1939 Lincoln and commenced a long road trip to Virginia. They checked into the Hotel Roanoke, where they hosted a cocktail party for Stella and her friends at Hollins. On a glorious spring day, they sat with a crowd of other proud parents and family members and watched Stella accept her degree in English literature. The following day, while the ladies sipped tea in the shade, Joel hauled boxes and bags from her dorm room to the car. When it was stuffed and he was exhausted, Stella said good-bye to college, to a school she loved, and to her friends. Joel had never seen so many tears, not even at a good funeral.
With the women in the rear seat barking instructions, and with the view in every mirror blocked by luggage and boxes, they roared away from Hollins and headed north. Three hours later, they were lost in Richmond, but stopped anyway at a barbecue place in a lesser part of the city. A local pointed this way and that, and after a quick lunch they were off again, headed for D.C.
Stella’s grand plan was still to live in New York, work for a magazine, and write serious fiction on the side. Getting there, though, would take more time than she realized. Jobs in publishing were scarce, but every school needed young teachers. St. Agnes in Alexandria was an Episcopal girls’ day and boarding school, and it offered her a contract to teach English to ninth graders and serve as a dorm parent. While she and Florry enjoyed even more tea with the headmistress, Joel schlepped her bags and boxes into a suffocating dorm room even smaller than the last.
The school allowed him to park the car in a safe place. For $10, a janitor agreed to keep air in the tires and crank the engine once a day. They called a cab and crossed the Potomac into D.C. At Union Station, they caught their train to New York.
* * *
—
Before Burch Dunlap and his greedy clients could seize their money, they had decided to spend some of what was left of it. Stella’s tuitions were now in the past and she had a job. Joel had only one more year of law school and he would start working. Florry’s land was safe from the vultures, and she had some money buried. Nineteen forty-nine could be their last summer together, so why not do it in style?
At the port in lower Manhattan, they boarded an ocean liner bound for London, and for two weeks had a delightful time resting and reading and trying to forget all the troubles back home. On deck, Joel and Stella noticed for the first time how slow Florry was getting about. She was carrying too much weight, as usual, but she had always been vigorous and busy. Now, though, she was missing a step and seemed winded after even a short walk. She was only fifty, but aging and looking tired.
In London, they spent a week at the St. Regis Hotel and saw the sights, then traveled to Edinburgh, where they boarded the Royal Scotsman for a week in the Highlands. When they were tired of visiting ca
stles, manor homes, historic sites, and distilleries, they returned to London for a two-day rest before pushing on to Paris.
Stella and Joel were having coffee in the lobby of the Hôtel Lutetia when they got the news. Florry was not feeling well and had decided to rest through the morning and not walk the city at full throttle. A porter approached and handed Joel a cablegram. It was from John Wilbanks. The Mississippi Supreme Court had voted 7–2 to reverse Rumbold. The conveyance of the land to Joel and Stella was null and void. The property would remain in their father’s estate; thus, subject to all claims and liens.
“Reversed and rendered,” Joel said in disbelief.
“What does that mean?” Stella asked.
“It means the case is over. It means the supreme court felt strongly that Rumbold was wrong and decided to end the matter without further hearings.”
“What about an appeal?”
“Yes, we’ll file another appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court and try to buy some time. Wilbanks and I will discuss bankruptcy.”
They sipped coffee and watched the foot traffic pass through the luxurious lobby. Stella said, “I have a question, and I want an honest answer. Does this mean that Jackie Bell and her children could one day be living in our home?”
“It’s possible but I still don’t believe it. At some point, Wilbanks will sit down with her lawyer and push hard to settle everything.”
“And how does that work?”
“We offer them cash.”
“I thought we tried that once.”
“We did, and they turned down $25,000. It’ll cost more now.”
“How much?”
“I don’t know. It’ll be a question of how much money is left in the bank accounts and how much money we can borrow against the land.”
“Do you really want to mortgage the land, Joel? You know how much Dad hated banks.”
“We may not have a choice.”
* * *
—
In its ruling, the state supreme court found that Pete’s conduct amounted to fraud in several ways. First, he retained an interest in his land by living on it and farming it and profiting from it. Second, he received nothing in return for the deed to his children. Third, the transfer of ownership was to family members, which is always suspicious. And, fourth, at the time he signed the deed he had reason to believe that he would one day be pursued by creditors because of his actions.
John Wilbanks read the opinion a dozen times and found the court’s logic sound. He went through the useless routine of appealing the decision to the only court left, the U.S. Supreme Court, but knew there was no chance the case would be accepted for argument. He consulted with a close friend in Memphis who was a bankruptcy specialist, and was not encouraged by the conversation. Putting Pete’s estate into bankruptcy would be a smart delaying tactic, but a successful outcome would be difficult.
Wilbanks went back to chancery court for another injunction to prevent a foreclosure pending appeals, and, of course, Rumbold gave it to him. Dunlap took another lump and appealed. Soon enough, though, not even a highly biased judge like Rumbold could forestall the inevitable.
After the hearing, a composed and quite confident Dunlap chatted with Wilbanks and offered a proposal. It was time to stop running up legal bills and face the obvious. The appeals would not work, nor would a bankruptcy. Why not simply deed the land, all 640 acres, plus the house and furnishings, over to Jackie Bell? If the Bannings would agree to it, then Jackie would forgo all claims to the bank accounts.
Wilbanks bristled at the proposal and said, as he walked away, “The Bannings will burn the house and the crops before they sign over a deed.”
Dunlap shot back, “Great, but please remind your clients that arson is still a crime, punishable by a long prison sentence.”
* * *
—
When Joel and Florry crossed the state line into Mississippi in late July, they began to notice, as always, the cotton, and it was not encouraging. Heavy rains in the spring had delayed the planting, and in the two months they had been living it up in England and Europe the weather had obviously not cooperated. In a good year the cotton bloomed by July 4, and by Labor Day it was chest high.
This was the worst-looking crop in recent memory, and as they crossed through the farmlands of north Mississippi the cotton looked worse. There were no blooms. The stalks were hardly knee high. In low spots entire acres had been washed out.
Nineva made a pot of coffee and asked about their trip. They asked about the weather and got an earful. While they were gone it rained every day, it seemed, and even when it wasn’t raining the skies were cloudy. Cotton needed days and days of dry weather and hot sun, and, well, it was obvious the weather was killing the crops. Amos was fighting it in the garden but the yield was far below normal.
As if life on the Banning farm wasn’t depressing enough.
Joel drove his aunt to the pink cottage and unloaded her luggage. They had a drink on the porch, stared at the pathetic crops, and wished they were back in Scotland.
* * *
—
John Wilbanks wanted to see him, and as badly as Joel wanted to avoid the law office and the courthouse and everything else about downtown Clanton, he had no choice. They met in the large conference room on the ground floor, a sign that the meeting was of extra importance. Russell also joined them, another sure signal.
The brothers promptly fired up their smokes, the standard short black cigar for John and a cigarette for Russell. Joel declined and said he would join them just by breathing the air.
John recapped the litigation. They had two frivolous appeals filed with the U.S. Supreme Court and they could expect both to be rejected within a couple of months, as soon as a clerk there got around to the paperwork. There was no reason whatsoever for the Court to show any interest in either case. Burch Dunlap had enrolled the $100,000 judgment across the street, and would wait patiently for the Bannings and their lawyers to tire themselves with useless legal maneuverings and throw in the towel.
“What about bankruptcy?” Joel asked.
“It won’t work, because the estate is not bankrupt. We could do it and stall, but Dunlap would waste no time getting a hearing before the bankruptcy judge. And remember, if we put the estate into bankruptcy, the trustee then assumes control of the estate. We don’t name the trustee. The court does.”
Russell let loose a cloud of smoke and said, “There’s an excellent chance the trustee could order the executrix, Florry, to hand over all assets to the judgment creditor, Jackie Bell.”
“None of this is surprising,” Joel said.
“And there’s something else,” Russell said. “We need to get paid. Our bill is now over $7,000 and I’m not sure there’s enough in the estate to pay us. We’ve been shotgunning petitions and motions right and left, hoping for a miracle, and it’s taken a lot of time. Using a bankruptcy as a stall tactic just eats more clock.”
“I understand.”
John said, “We’re at the end of the road, Joel. There’s nothing left except a good-faith effort to settle with these people. We have one idea left, and it’s the only one that might save the land. It requires a mortgage on both pieces of property—Pete’s and Florry’s. All twelve hundred acres. You borrow as much as you can, and offer it to Dunlap to settle everything.”
Cautiously, Joel asked, “How much?”
“The house is valued at thirty thousand. The land is worth about a hundred bucks an acre, on the high side, but you’d have a hard time getting that much in this market. As you know, only about a thousand acres are planted. No bank is going to lend the full value because of the risk. Think about it. Pete managed to either break even or show a profit most years because he owned the land free and clear, plus he worked himself to the bone, pushed his workers, and watched every dime. Burden the land with a mortgage and
suddenly you’re in business with a bank. A couple of bad crops, like this one, and you fall behind. Before you know it, the bank starts talking about foreclosure. Happens every year around here, even in good years.”
Russell took the handoff and said, “We’ve talked to our brother over at the bank and he’s not too keen on the deal. If Pete were alive and cracking the whip, the farm would be more attractive. But he’s gone, you’re not a farmer, Florry’s crazy as hell. I can see the banks running from this one.”
Joel asked, “How much would your brother lend?”
“Seventy-five thousand at the most,” John said.
Russell added, “And I’m not sure about that. There’s another problem that’s rather obvious. We represent your family, and we represent the bank. What if there’s a default? The law firm suddenly has a huge conflict of interest, one that could land us in serious trouble.”
John said, “And we haven’t discussed this with the other bank in town. As you know, there’s a good bit of rivalry involved between the families. I doubt they would touch it, but we could possibly take it to a larger bank in Tupelo.”
Joel stood and walked around the room. “I can’t ask Florry to mortgage her land. That’s simply too much. It’s all she’s got and if she lost it I don’t know where she’d go. I can’t do it. I’m not going to ask her.”
John flicked ashes into a dish and said, “Here’s a plan. Tell me what you think. I’ll sit down with Dunlap and negotiate. He probably took this case on a contingency and hasn’t been paid a dime yet, so he might have an interest in a cash settlement. I’ll start at fifty thousand and we’ll see what he’s thinking. You can handle fifty, right?”
“I suppose,” Joel said. “But the thought of owing that much makes me sick.”
“It should, but you and Stella can keep your land and your home.”
“What if they want too much?”